Troubled families and B.C. children in care

It’s disturbing to read another report about the plight of B.C. children in care.

The province’s representative for children and youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, has called for urgent government action to help these kids deal with trauma in their lives. A full story is here.

Clearly children cannot be left with abusive families, but it was heartbreaking to read this: “When children wake up in countless different homes, always starting over with strangers, they lack the chance to form meaningful attachments.”

A caller to B.C. Almanac on CBC Radio asked why more help isn’t provided to keep families together. It reminded me of an intriguing story in The Economist about an experimental program in Britain designed to do just that:

Jackie Baptiste’s working day begins at seven o’clock, when she goes to a council house, drags someone else’s children out of bed and packs them off to school. The social worker is not a woman to be trifled with. “They might tell me to F-off, but it’s only words,” she shrugs. Sometimes she films the desperate attempts of a mother to control her brood, then plays the recording back, offering tips on how to do it right. She attends parent-teacher meetings, appointments with doctors and counselling for alcoholism and domestic violence, all the while holding the hands of her adult charges. In a typical week she will see the same family five or six times, as part of Westminster council’s Family Recovery Programme. She is part of a growing movement, and the product of a remarkable political consensus. More here.